incompetence

See also: incompétence

English

Etymology

From French incompétence, equivalent to in- +‎ competence.

Pronunciation

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Noun

incompetence (usually uncountable, plural incompetences)

1. Inability to perform; lack of competence; ineptitude.

   Hyponym: weaponized incompetence

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     ... at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in Starbuck

   • 1949 June 8, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Nineteen Eighty-Four: A Novel, London: Secker & Warburg, →OCLC; republished [Australia]: Project Gutenberg of Australia, August 2001:

     Winston did not know why Withers had been disgraced. Perhaps it was for corruption or incompetence. Perhaps Big Brother was merely getting rid of a too-popular subordinate.

   • 1974, Ursula Leguin, The Dispossessed:

     The factory where she worked was a poisonous mass of incompetence, favoritism, and sabotage.

Derived terms

• artificial incompetence
• immunoincompetence
• weaponized incompetence

Related terms

• incompetent
• competency
• incompetency

Translations

inability to perform

Bulgarian: неспососбност f (nespososbnost), некомпетентност (bg) f (nekompetentnost) Catalan: incompetència f Czech: nekompetentnost (cs) f, neschopnost (cs) f Danish: inkompetence c Dutch: incompetentie (nl) Finnish: epäpätevyys (fi), taitamattomuus (fi), osaamattomuus (fi) French: incompétence (fr) Georgian: არაკომპეტენტურობა (araḳomṗeṭenṭuroba), უუნარობა (uunaroba), ქმედუუნარობა (kmeduunaroba), არაქმედითობა (arakmeditoba) German: Inkompetenz (de) f Hungarian: alkalmatlanság (hu), hozzá nem értés, inkompetencia (hu) Irish: neamhinniúlacht f, neamhfhulangacht f Italian: incompetenza (it) f Persian: بی‌عرضگی (bi-o'rzegi) Polish: niekompetencja (pl) f, inkompetencja f Portuguese: incompetência (pt) f Russian: некомпете́нтность (ru) f (nekompeténtnostʹ) Sanskrit: अक्षमा (sa) f (akṣamā) Spanish: incompetencia (es) Swedish: inkompetens (sv) Telugu: అసమర్థత (te) (asamarthata)